For a number of years, wooden pallets have been the mainstay of the material handling business. In the past, wooden pallets have provided advantages of economy, simplicity and durability, principally because of the lack of other suitable materials. However, wooden pallets are extremely heavy and require costly hand labor in their fabrication.
In the past decades, disposable pallets have been proposed and, with the growth of the plastics industry, a wide variety of plastics have been investigated to determine their suitability for use in producing pallets. Plastic pallets can easily be molded and are stronger and lighter in weight than wooden pallets. Furthermore, plastic pallets are more durable than wooden pallets.
Examples of molded plastic pallets are disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,814,031; 3,664,271; 3,610,173; 4,013,021; 4,316,419; 4,597,338; and 4,735,154.
Thus, while a number of plastic pallets have been proposed, these proposed solutions have not been widely accepted and there remains a need for a plastic pallet that is light in weight, durable, capable of supporting heavy loads and is easy to manufacture and have a minimum number of parts that are preferably interchangeable.